(CNSNews.com) – Speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 30, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that Iran “exports terrorism” in a global fashion that “stretches from Mexico to Thailand.

“We already know very well that the Iranian regime already exports terrorism, not only to Israel’s doorstep, but across the world,” Clinton said. “If we had a map I could put up there, I could show you what we track and plot on that map.

“The evidence of terrorism, mostly, thankfully, plots foiled or unsuccessful, unfortunately, as in Bulgaria, some that succeeded,” Clinton said. “But those plots, those activities of Iran directly or through their agents, stretches from Mexico to Thailand.”

The Pentagon will send hundreds of additional spies overseas as part of an ambitious plan to assemble an espionage network that rivals the CIA in size, U.S. officials said.

The project is aimed at transforming the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has been dominated for the past decade by the demands of two wars, into a spy service focused on emerging threats and more closely aligned with the CIA and elite military commando units.

When the expansion is complete, the DIA is expected to have as many as 1,600 “collectors” in positions around the world, an unprecedented total for an agency whose presence abroad numbered in the triple digits in recent years.

The total includes military attachés and others who do not work undercover. But U.S. officials said the growth will be driven over a five-year period by the deployment of a new generation of clandestine operatives. They will be trained by the CIA and often work with the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, but they will get their spying assignments from the Department of Defense.

Among the Pentagon’s top intelligence priorities, officials said, are Islamist militant groups in Africa, weapons transfers by North Korea and Iran, and military modernization underway in China.

The White House announced its opposition to a new round of Iran sanctions that the Senate unanimously approved Friday, in the latest instance of Congress pushing for more aggressive punitive measures on Iran than the administration deems prudent.

On Thursday, Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) introduced the amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, which the Senate passed 94-0. The new legislative language would blacklist Iran’s energy, port, shipping, and shipbuilding sectors, while also placing new restrictions on Iran’s ability to get insurance for all these industries. The legislation would also vastly expand U.S. support for human rights inside Iran and impose new sanctions on Iranians who divert humanitarian assistance from its intended purpose.

“The window is closing. The time for the waiting game is over,” Menendez said on the Senate floor Thursday night. “Yes, our sanctions are having a demonstrable effect on the Iranian economy, but Iran is still working just as hard to develop nuclear weapons.”

But the White House told several Senate offices Thursday evening that the administration was opposed to the amendment. National Security Spokesman Tommy Vietor sent The Cable the administration’s official position, explaining the White House’s view the sanctions aren’t needed and aren’t helpful at this time.

“As we focus with our partners on effectively implementing these efforts, we believe additional authorities now threaten to undercut these efforts,” he said. “We also have concerns with some of the formulations as currently drafted in the text and want to work through them with our congressional partners to make the law more effective and consistent with the current sanctions law to ensure we don’t undercut our success to date.”

photo credit: Mitya AleshkovskyThe Russian government is lambasting the U.S. presidential race as an undemocratic spectacle amid growing concerns about the country’s own commitment to free and fair elections.

The Foreign Ministry this week accused America of hypocrisy following reports that some U.S. states would turn away international election monitors at the polls.

The Kremlin-funded Russia Today television station, meanwhile, is serving up a steady stream of outraged U.S. election coverage, reporting on topics such as the lack of polling places in Indian country and the short-shift given to third-party candidates by the American media.

The U.S. electoral system, Russian elections chief Vladimir Churov declared this week, “is the worst in the world.”

Observers say the attacks against America’s election system are largely fueled by domestic politics in Russia.

Officials at the White House and State Department were advised two hours after attackers assaulted the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 that an Islamic militant group had claimed credit for the attack, official emails show.

The emails, obtained by Reuters from government sources not connected with U.S. spy agencies or the State Department and who requested anonymity, specifically mention that the Libyan group called Ansar al-Sharia had asserted responsibility for the attacks.

The brief emails also show how U.S. diplomats described the attack, even as it was still under way, to Washington.

Administration spokesmen, including White House spokesman Jay Carney, citing an unclassified assessment prepared by the CIA, maintained for days that the attacks likely were a spontaneous protest against an anti-Muslim film.

Two-thirds of a billion Muslims expect the Mahdi – the last Islamic imam they believe will come and rule the world – to arrive in their lifetimes, according to a new poll.

The survey by Pew Research notes that in the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia, “half or more Muslims believe they will live to see the return of the Mahdi. This expectation is most widespread in Afghanistan (83 percent), Iraq (72 percent), Tunisia (67 percent) and Malaysia (62 percent).

The survey said that belief drops to about four-in-10 across Central Asia, except for Turkey, where 68 percent expect to witness his return. It drops slightly further across southern and eastern Europe.

“In some countries with sizable Sunni and Shi’a populations, views on the Mahdi’s return differ by sect. In Iraq, for example, Shi’as are more likely than Sunnis to expect the Mahdi to return in their lifetime, by an 88 percent to 55 percent margin. In Azerbaijan, the difference between the two groups is also large (25 percentage points),” the report said. “Differences between Shi’as and Sunnis on this issue may reflect the more central role that the Mahdi’s return plays in Shi’a Islam.”

The result? An estimated 672 million Muslims expect to witness the Mahdi’s return.

By Ben Blanchard. China’s Foreign Ministry has called in a senior U.S. diplomat to protest against remarks by the U.S. State Department raising concerns over tensions in the contested South China Sea, further intensifying an already fraught territorial dispute.

In a statement released late on Saturday, China’s Foreign Ministry said Assistant Foreign Minister Zhang Kunsheng summoned the U.S. Embassy’s Deputy Chief of Mission Robert Wang to make “serious representations” about the issue.

The State Department on Friday said it was monitoring the situation in the seas closely, adding that China’s establishment of a military garrison for the area runs “counter to collaborative diplomatic efforts to resolve differences and risk further escalating tensions in the region”.

The South China Sea has become Asia’s biggest potential military flashpoint. Beijing’s sovereignty claim over the huge area has set it against Vietnam and the Philippines as the three countries race to tap possibly huge oil reserves.

Beijing and Washington are already at odds over numerous matters, including the value of China’s currency, Tibet and Taiwan. Read more from this story HERE.

China tell US to “Shut-up”

By Chris Buckley. China’s state-run media ramped up condemnation of the United States on Monday over tensions in the South China Sea, with the Communist Party’s top newspaper telling Washington to “Shut up” and charging it with “fanning flames” of division in the region.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry’s over the weekend condemned a U.S. State Department statement that said Washington was closely monitoring territorial disputes in the South China Sea, and that China’s establishment of a military garrison for the area risks “further escalating tensions in the region”.

The mosaic of rival territorial claims in the South China Sea has become Asia’s worst potential military flashpoint.

Beijing has said its disputes with Vietnam, the Philippines and other southeast Asian claimants should be settled one-on-one, and it has bristled at U.S. backing for a multilateral approach to solving the overlapping claims.

“We are entirely entitled to shout at the United States, ‘Shut up’. How can meddling by other countries be tolerated in matters that are within the scope of Chinese sovereignty?,” said a commentary in the overseas edition of the People’s Daily, an offshoot of the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s top newspaper. Read more from this story HERE.

http://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttp://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2012-08-06 04:35:482012-08-06 04:35:48China furious over interference in the South China Sea, tells US to "shut-up"

For years, liberals and misguided State Department officials have pushed for the U.S. Senate to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). This treaty would convey ownership of the oceans to a United Nations agency and give international bureaucrats veto authority over U.S. naval operations and could force the United States to comply with international carbon emissions caps.

Last week, we defeated LOST by securing commitments to ensure it cannot gain the 67 votes needed for ratification.

However, no sooner had the 34th Republican senator signed a letter opposing LOST than the surrender of American sovereignty was put back on the table by foreign diplomats and their internationalist allies in the federal government.

With LOST dead, the new treaties being promoted to take its place include the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Disabled, which calls for government agents to supersede the authority of parents of disabled children and even covers abortion. Also, the Obama administration has begun negotiations on a new U.N. treaty to create international gun control rules that could slowly erode our Second Amendment.

The globalist ideologues behind these treaties are either ignorant of or hostile to the universal human experience that problems are best solved by the people and institutions closest to them. So assured are these masters of their mandate to direct the lives and wealth of other people that they see their routine failures to do so efficiently at the local, state and national level merely as reason to ascend to new heights of international command and control.

“Which Side Are You On?/They say in Harlan County/There are no neutrals there./You’ll either be a union man/Or a thug for J. H. Blair.” –Florence Reece, “Which Side are You On?” 1931

The interesting news was not that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was pelted with stuff while visiting Cair, the important issue was who was doing the pelting. Once upon a time, anti-American radicals threw things at U.S. leaders. But now….

Reportedly, the hurlers of objects were people from the Free Egyptians Party and other Egyptian liberals. At the same time, leading Christians, including Naguib Sawiris who is the man behind that party and perhaps the most outspoken anti-Islamist figure in Egypt today, refused to meet with Hillary. (For Sawiris’ critique of Obama, see here.)

In the articles of liberal Arabs; the statements of Persian Gulf Arab establishment figures; the conversations of Syrian, Turkish, Iranian, and Lebanese oppositionists, the idea that the U.S. government is now helping the Islamists is taken for granted.

Let me repeat that: It is taken for granted.

So it is the liberals, the democrats, the moderates who now view America as their enemy. Yet supposedly the U.S. policy is promoting moderation and democracy, right?

These critics have a strong case. Obama’s Cairo speech was precisely about encouraging Middle Easterners to redefine their identity from a national one—principally Arab—to an Islamic one. Obama invited the Brotherhood to sit in the front row. And when the upsurge in Egypt began and the State Department wanted to support continuity along with reform, the Obama Administration demanded the end of the regime.

Next, without anyone asking him, Obama said the United States wouldn’t mind if the Brotherhood became the government of Egypt. And more recently, of course, he has supported the Brotherhood against the army, demanding that the military turn over power right away, or else.

And in Syria, the Obama Administration backed a Brotherhood-dominated leadership in the Syrian National Council. Islamist Turkey was the ideal country from the White House standpoint, with Obama lavishing praise and almost never criticizing it for becoming pro-Hizballah, pro-Hamas, pro-Iran, pro-Islamist in Syria, and fanatically anti-Israel. And in Bahrain, the Obama Administration was ready to back a revolution putting (Shia) Islamists in power until the State Department stopped it.

“I want to be clear that the United States is not in the business, in Egypt,” says Clinton, “of choosing winners and losers, even if we could, which, of course, we cannot.”

Wrong! While of course Islamists won elections in Egypt and Tunisia (but maybe lost in Libya), the Obama Administration has been working to pick the winners and losers. The winners: revolutionary, antisemitic Islamists; the losers: old regimes and liberal oppositionists.

Is it really the West’s duty to help push a radical Islamist government into power in Egypt as fast as possible? True, the Brotherhood won the parliamentary election but the election was invalidated. By who? Ah, one might expect a leading American newspaper to know that fact. Here’s the Los Angeles Times editorial on the subject:

“To some extent, the military’s power — along with economic realities — may have inclined [Egyptian President Muhammad al-] Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood to a more pluralist and moderate course. But if the generals overplay their hand, they will lose popular support and antagonize Egypt’s allies, including the United States, which provides the military with $1.3 billion a year in assistance. Both Congress and the Obama administration have put the generals on notice that those funds are in jeopardy if the transition to democracy is thwarted. An attempt to shut down a reconvened parliament would be interpreted inside and outside Egypt as just such an obstruction.”

Let’s list the points made here:

–The Muslim Brotherhood has become more pluralist and moderate. Why? Because of the military’s power and economic realities. How is this logical? You mean that the military’s pressure on the Brotherhood has made it more moderate? So by that argument if the military ceased its pressure and turned over government to the Brotherhood then the Brotherhood would be more radical. Yet that is precisely what the Los Angeles Times and much of the media and the Obama Administration is advocating!

How has the economic situation made the Brotherhood more moderate? Presumably because it needs to be so in order to keep Western aid and investment flowing. But both of these factors will be insufficient to help Egypt avoid a crack-up. Then comes the time for demagoguery. Moreover, the bottom line here is to claim that the Brotherhood can be bought off. Like Iran’s regime, Syria’s regime, Saddam Hussein, and others were bought off?

–If the generals try to limit or keep the Muslim Brotherhood out of power they will become less popular. Well, maybe that is so. But popularity isn’t the most important thing in the region. That’s an American obsession, not one from Arab politics.

–The United States doesn’t like the military’s policy and will punish the army (cutting off aid?) if it doesn’t surrender. That’s a terrible policy. Talk about empowering your enemies and bashing your friends! Why should the United States be the new patron of the most dangerously anti-American group in the world? I know. Because the Obama Administration believes that will make the Brotherhood more moderate. Yet even the Obama Administration has seen that this tactic didn’t work with Iran, Syria, Hamas, or Hizballah. Why should it work this time?

Then there are two extremely important points the editorial doesn’t tell you, and you won’t see in many places:
First, let’s remember that the parliamentary election was not invalidated by the army but by the Egyptian courts. Judges have been among the most courageous dissidents in Egypt. Many of them spoke out against the Mubarak regime and they are not the clients of the army but an independent force in their own right. So if you want to exalt the rule of law, you should support the military in trying to enforce a legally binding decision by two Egyptian courts.

PPS: So ridiculous is the coverage in the mainstream media that we are now told by the New York Times and by the Atlantic that Arab liberals jeered Clinton because American conservatives told them to do so! Apparently, the Egyptian reformers are too stupid to figure out for themselves that Obama is their good buddy.

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Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). Here are the links to the website of the GLORIA Center and to his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has signaled a preference in the U.S. presidential campaign by comparing Mitt Romney to his own challenger.

Chavez, who is up for re-election a month before U.S. President Barack Obama, has in recent weeks expressed a clear preference for the man currently in the White House.

In a campaign speech Saturday night, Chavez equated the agenda of his challenger, Henrique Capriles, with that of Romney, saying both men represent the callously selfish capitalist elite.

Chavez claims Capriles, a moderate former governor, is trying to trick Venezuelans into believing he genuinely cares about the poor, the core of Venezuelan president’s constituency.

“I believe the person to best explain the loser’s agenda isn’t Barack Obama but rather Romney, because it’s the extreme right-wing agenda that borders on the fascism of the United States,” Chavez told tens of thousands of supporters in the western city of Maracaibo.